The Travel Behavior and Data (TBD) Hub

Term Start:

June 1, 2024

Term End:

May 30, 2029

Budget:

$375,000

Keywords:

Dashboard, Equity, Metrics, Technology

Thrust Area(s):

Data Modeling and Analytic Tools

University Lead:

Arizona State University, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, City College of New York, Diné College, Georgia Institute of Technology, The University of Texas at Austin, University of Michigan, University of Washington

Researcher(s):

Wen Cheng; Ram Pendyala; Patricia Mokhtarian; James Tutt; Cynthia Chen; Chandra Bhat; Atiyya Shaw; Alison Conway

In an era characterized by transformative shifts in demographics, lifestyles, work patterns, technological advances, societal values, and climate and environmental conditions, decision-makers are now confronted with ever-increasing, multifaceted uncertainties. The TBD National Center has launched a flagship initiative, called the TBD Hub, to provide transportation decision-makers information and deep insights about the state of the transportation system from multiple perspectives, thereby helping navigate and shape the evolving landscape of mobility. The TBD Hub is a travel behavior data hub that brings a variety of data sets into a single unified platform, thus serving as a one-stop shop for data-driven insights on travel behavior and demand. Examples of the datasets that the platform will bring together include, but are not limited to,  American Community Survey (ACS) census data, National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) data, American Time Use Survey (ATUS) data, Consumer Expenditure Survey (CES) data, Commodity Flow Survey (CFS) data, Vehicle Inventory and Use Survey (VIUS) data, National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS) data, Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS) data, and Air Quality (AirNow) data. In addition, through a unique partnership with data vendors and aggregators, including StreetLight Data, the platform will integrate aggregated origin-destination flow data derived from billions of trajectories. The platform will be built through a multi-year, multi-university effort that spans multiple disciplines and thrust areas. The team will harness the latest techniques in data aggregation, data fusion and integration, data imputation and weighting, data prediction (using machine learning algorithms), and data visualization to build a national TBD hub that the public, planners, and policy-makers alike can leverage to understand the state of the transportation system. In addition to providing a wide variety of tabulations, charts, and dynamic visualizations, the hub will integrate a well-being calculator, an energy footprint calculator, and a mobility poverty calculator to aid in planning for equity, sustainability, and community well-being. The primary data source for these analyses will be American Community Survey (ACS) census data, National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) data, American Time Use Survey (ATUS) data, and Consumer Expenditure Survey (CES) data. Other data sources will also be considered as the project moves into its subsequent phases.

This TBD flagship project will be built through a multi-year and multi-university effort. It is envisioned that the Hub will feature numerous separate but complementary data dashboards, each designed to focus on a specific topical area and/or data set. There will be two types of dashboards: the first type will focus on insights from a single data set, such as ATUS or NHTS, across multiple topical areas; the second type will integrate multiple data sets to provide a comprehensive view of a single topical area. These individual dashboards that will form the TBD Hub will be developed as separate TBD research projects. Thus, the current proposal is dedicated to creating a single, unified platform that will host all of these individual dashboards thematically. The TBD Hub anticipates democratizing access to publicly available data sets through the development of user-friendly dashboards that will be available on a one-stop shop. Through this Hub, TBD envisions providing resources, data, and tools that will greatly advance the ability of agencies and industries to implement data-driven methods, policies, and investments that improve mobility for all in an equitable and sustainable way. 

Project scope

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